The mobile tech industry is one of the most influential and useful industries to both consumers and businesses because of how necessary that level of functionality is. The value that this industry adds to businesses and individuals is significant, and will likely only increase as the world continues to shift to the mobile landscape. And unlike other valuable industries such as energy, it is not geographically dependent where mobile tech companies are stationed. The purpose of this paper is to examine some of the accounting topics which are most prevalent to the mobile tech industry; namely research and development, inventory, and other intangibles like advertising. The two most significant sets of accounting standards, US GAAP and IFRS, treat these topics differently. This paper analyzes these differences in order to determine which system is more beneficial to the current trends and strategies used by mobile tech companies today. The result is that there are no significant definite differences between GAAP and IFRS in the mobile tech industry with regard to inventory and intangibles, but there is potential for significant benefit under IFRS depending upon specific business practice. There is also significant benefit for IFRS when R&D costs are rising
